I was born in Ninh Hoa, Khánh Hòa, Vietnam, and came to New Orleans at five years old, young enough that the city became my first language. New Orleans leads with its soul and wears its heart openly, and growing up inside that taught me to pay attention differently. To move through the world with a kind of surreal tenderness. To understand that the quiet moments, a prayer, an exhale, something small and fleeting that most people walk past, are often where the most truth lives.

Maybe that is why I have always been drawn to flowers. They are beautiful because they are temporary, and somewhere in that impermanence is why I first picked up a camera. Not to stop time. To honor it.